Tapping into novel ways to promote portfolios around the festive season, brands including Boots’ No7, L’Occitane and Baylis & Harding have all rolled out cracker ranges this year, filled with beauty treats rather than the traditional cracker fare of poor jokes and plastic toys.
Kellogg’s, the cereal brand, has even stepped into the arena with a cross-category cracker set filled with bubble baths.
Making the most of novelty gifting opportunities around seasonal events is a good way for brands to reach new consumers, according to market analysts.
Reaching new audiences
According to Jamie Mills, researcher with Datamonitor, the key benefit of these types of product campaigns is the opportunity for consumer recruitment to a brand, or to new products within a brand.
"This segment benefits brands by improving awareness of their wider portfolio, as they can combine established products alongside recent launches in order to capture consumer interest with products they are familiar with while also being able to experiment with new ranges," Mills explained previously to Cosmetics Design.
It also taps into the rising demand for niche and novel consumer experiences when it comes to beauty, as brands look to maximise the ‘omnichannel’ approach to retail.
Digital with a physical touch
Consumers increasingly turn to the internet for purchasing beauty and personal care items, yet still place a huge amount of importance on the look, feel and scent of products.
Thus the rise of omnichannel retailing is taking place: brands need to have an immersive online and offline brand presence and retail offering. Beauty crackers and advent calendars can form part of this type of strategy.
According to recent research by Imogen Matthews Associates (IMA), beauty still has work to do in the field of omnichannel retail, but getting the approach right will yield great returns.
“The beauty industry has some catching up to do in the area of omnichannel, not least in understanding that every part of a brand’s business needs to be connected. Consumers expect to move seamlessly between different channels and will abandon brands that don’t offer that experience,” Matthews asserts.